German city dumping OpenOffice for Microsoft

[klr]

I've been trying to get used to the ribbon for a long while now, and it still requires a great amount of mental effort to get things done at time. In other words, it's failed for me. It's supposed to make my life easier, not harder. Microsoft are (amongst other things) trying to ram a one-size-fits-all approach down our throats, but it's very narrow fit. For one thing, it's very keyboard unfriendly. While it's still possible to use many Excel 2003 short-cut key sequences, you don't always get the immediate visual feedback to each short-cut key that you would have gotten with the earlier version. You just have to trust you're entering the commands correctly. Not very intuitive or helpful.

[Jason]

For one thing, it's very keyboard unfriendly.

They're shifting the office software towards the console market. The nextgen Xbox will ship with Windows 8 and Office 2014.

[amused]

The one thing I dislike about the newer versions of Word is its insistence on trying to 'help' me. Like insisting that the first letter of each line be capitalized. I know I can turn it off, but I'm not bothered enough to go look it up.

[klr]

I can still use Lotus 1-2-3 - yes, a DOS program from the 1980's - with relatively little difficulty.


It had it's own unique menu structure. Even 20 years after I last used it in earnest, I can still recall most of the main menu sequences and basic operation sequences after a couple of attempts at most.

Modern software should be even easier to use, since most packages should (in theory) use the same set of basic menus, and the same commands to do similar things. Yet somehow Microsoft has found a way to make word processors and spreadsheets awkward to use.

[MiM]

Word Perfect was wonderful, in that you could easily dig right into the code it created, and correct any mistakes the bugger had made. With Word it's always a complete mystery why a command behaves differently in this paragraph, than in the previous.

[Robert_S]

I can still use Lotus 1-2-3 - yes, a DOS program from the 1980's - with relatively little difficulty.


It had it's own unique menu structure. Even 20 years after I last used it in earnest, I can still recall most of the main menu sequences and basic operation sequences after a couple of attempts at most.

Modern software should be even easier to use, since most packages should (in theory) use the same set of basic menus, and the same commands to do similar things. Yet somehow Microsoft has found a way to make word processors and spreadsheets awkward to use.

Ah yeah... Lotus and WordPerfect!

I will now spend a moment or two Pine-ing for a simpler time.

[amused]

Heh, I started out with Supercalc and Wordstar, on an Osborne.

[Robert_S]

Heh, I started out with Supercalc and Wordstar, on an Osborne.

What are those? Tools for marking clay tablets?

[amused]

I had a ginormous daisy wheel printer that was so loud that they also sold a soundproof enclosure for it so the secretaries didn't go deaf.

[klr]

It's Retro City here.

I used Supercalc 4 very briefly in my early days at university, before we switched to Lotus 1-2-3. I don't Remember doing much word processing, but for what little we did, I think we used Wordstar, before eventually switching to WordPerfect.

[Robert_S]

I had a ginormous daisy wheel printer that was so loud that they also sold a soundproof enclosure for it so the secretaries didn't go deaf.

I had one of those too! Picked it up in the mid '90s for $3.00 a pound from the junkyard where the University of Illinois would drop off truckloads of "obsolete" computer stuff.

[klr]

Talking about all these old packages: One of the reasons they eventually failed was because they couldn't make the transition from their own unique interfaces to a standard Windows environment*. There was even a time in the 1980's when Lotus sued Borland because the Borland Quattro spreadsheet copied the 1-2-3 menu structure. The courts threw it out, and since then people pretty much expect that it's better for programs to share interfaces and commands.

*That and because Microsoft sneakily got in with a Windows office suite first.

[Warren Dew]

Heh, I started out with Supercalc and Wordstar, on an Osborne.

I still have files in Wordstar format. Tough to find a translator for that format any more, though i suppose I could write one.

[JimC]

I use Microsoft Office for the Mac - I like the ribbon, once I got used to it, and customised it to suit......

(mainly Word and Excel)

[klr]

Heh, I started out with Supercalc and Wordstar, on an Osborne.

I still have files in Wordstar format. Tough to find a translator for that format any more, though i suppose I could write one.

Which version? There are probably converters available, but it might depend on the format.